Copycat Eating

When women who are unacquainted eat together, they often become copycats: One takes a bite, and within five seconds, so does the other one, according to Roel C. J. Hermans, a psychologist from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, who with colleagues videotaped 70 pairs of women who had never met before as they ate together. (One member of each pair had been told how much to eat.) This mimicry emerged especially among the women who had received no eating instructions, and regardless of either their own body size or that of the woman they were imitating. The behavior is likely a friendly attempt to ingratiate oneself, but it also may cause overeating, the researchers point out.